Luther, Conflict, and Christendom
Reformation Europe and Christianity in the West

Martin Luther was the subject of a religious controversy that never really came to an end. The Reformation was a controversy about him.

Christopher Ocker (Author)

9781316647844, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 February 2020

538 pages, 13 b/w illus.
15 x 23 x 3 cm, 0.81 kg

'The book itself, in its paperback incarnation, is handsomely produced … Christopher Ocker's elegant and richly documented study also inspires a sense of déjà-vu, echoing the debates of the 1970s and '80s which pitted social historians of the Reformation against church historians …' David Bagchi, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Martin Luther - monk, priest, intellectual, or revolutionary - has been a controversial figure since the sixteenth century. Most studies of Luther stress his personality, his ideas, and his ambitions as a church reformer. In this book, Christopher Ocker brings a new perspective to this topic, arguing that the different ways people thought about Luther mattered far more than who he really was. Providing an accessible, highly contextual, and non-partisan introduction, Ocker says that religious conflict itself served as the engine of religious change. He shows that the Luther affair had a complex political anatomy which extended far beyond the borders of Germany, making the debate an international one from the very start. His study links the Reformation to pluralism within western religion and to the coexistence of religions and secularism in today's world. Luther, Conflict, and Christendom includes a detailed chronological chart.

Introduction
1. The birth of an unconcluded controversy
2. Calming the rebel masses
3. The political anatomy of the Luther affair
4. Rebel princes and religious wars
5. Discriminations
6. Three orthodoxies
7. Many Martins
Epilogue. The global-historical Luther
Appendix: a table chronicling four processes that mark the parameters of the religious controversy over Luther to 1564.

Subject Areas: Protestantism & Protestant Churches [HRCC9], History of religion [HRAX], Religion: general [HRA], Religion & beliefs [HR], Social & cultural history [HBTB], History: specific events & topics [HBT], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], History: earliest times to present day [HBL], History [HB]